All Things Considered

Commonly referred to as "ATC" and a staple for afternoon commutes, NPR's nationally syndicated afternoon news magazine brings you closer to home with the presence of WAMU's local host.

Since May 3, 1971 All Things Considered has been produced every day from NPR's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Featuring a mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features, "ATC" produces 2 hours of fresh content every day for hundreds of public radio stations around the United States.

Elliott Francis

Local Host, All Things Considered

Francis has worked alongside some of the most influential media executives in the U.S. during his 25 years as a news anchor, including FOX News President and Chairman Roger Ailes, former CNN Executive Vice President Ed Turner, and the founder and former CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, John H. Johnson. In 2002, shortly after joining the ABC news affiliate in Washington DC (WJLA-TV) as the morning co-anchor, Francis was thrust into the rigors of live, non-stop coverage of the DC sniper shootings and investigation, sometimes speaking 8-9 hours unscripted. A skilled interviewer, Francis once convinced singer John Denver to go "on-camera" with details of his upcoming DUI trial.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Workers rallied in 100 cities on Thursday to raise awareness for increasing pressure to raise wages. The push comes as 19 cities and states already raised minimum wages. A report from Berkeley economists finds the low-wage fast food jobs are costing taxpayer billions of dollars in public assistance — everything from food stamps to Medicaid.

Chinese authorities have threatened to toss out all of the reporters for The New York Times and Bloomberg in China after 18 months of blockbuster stories exposing corruption among the elites — including, in the Times case, the family of Premier Wen Jiabao, who ruled for a decade, and Bloomberg's reporting on Li Keqiang, who took over in March. It is a reaction that has not been seen since the earliest days after the thawing of relations between the U.S. and China in the mid-1970s.

As the year draws to a close, so does the reign of emerald, Pantone's 2013 color of the year. That intense green must make way for Radiant Orchid, the recently crowned color of 2014. Melissa Block talks with Pantone Color Institute director Leatrice Eiseman, who runs the color search, about what the hue she calls "beguiling," and describes as "a member of the purple family with a strong fuchsia-pink undertone."

Can non-belief in God become a belief system itself? NPR's John Burnett has the story of the Texas indie band Quiet Company, who made a splash with a surprisingly positive album about frontman Taylor Muse's crisis of faith.

From his childhood as a herd boy, Nelson Mandela went on to lead the African National Congress' struggle against South Africa's racially oppressive apartheid regime. For his efforts, he spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner. In 1994, he became his country's first elected black leader. Mandela died on Thursday. He was 95.

Secretary of State Kerry had separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinians leaders Thursday. Much of his discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu focused on Iran and its nuclear program. But there was also discussion of some U.S. proposals on the security aspect of an eventual peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Some in the Israeli government are highly critical of those proposals.

New York City Mayor-Elect Bill deBlasio named William Bratton to head the city's police department Thursday. Bratton was New York's police commissioner in the 1990s, and was police chief in Los Angeles and commissioner in Boston. He'll return to the role as head of the nation's largest police department as the NYPD faces a crossroads. Despite unprecedentedly low crime rates in the city, the department has come under scrutiny in recent years for its controversial stop-and-frisk policy — tactics the mayor-elect has strongly criticized for souring relations between police and minority communities.

Former South Africa president Nelson Mandela died Thursday at his home in Johannesburg after a prolonged lung infection. News of the anti-apartheid icon's death resonated across the world. Mandela, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, spent 27 years in prison for his work to end South Africa's brutal apartheid system before becoming the country's first black president and preaching reconciliation and forgiveness.

Congress still has a long to-do list and not much time left. The House hopes to wrap it up next week — just as the Senate returns from a Thanksgiving break. On many lawmakers' lists are efforts to complete a farm bill before milk prices go off the "dairy cliff." That on top of tough budget negotiations.

NPR's Planet Money team is manufacturing its own T-shirt. After the women's shirt was assembled in Colombia, they voyaged by container ship to Miami. The container, a big standardized box that moves easily from truck to ship to train, is the unsung hero of the global economy. It was invented in the 1950s and dramatically reduced shipping costs, ushering in a new era vastly different than the world retired stevedores remember. There's a whole lot more about what it takes to make a simple T-shirt — the journey from cotton to completion — here.

Robert Siegel talks with criminologist George Kelling, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, about the career and policing style of William Bratton, who was named NYPD Police Commissioner Thursday.

Multi-music hyphenate Pharrell Williams hit it big earlier this year with the song, "Blurred Lines," which he co-wrote. Now Williams has blurred the lines of what makes a music video. The 24-hour-long music video for his new single, "Happy," has people dancing and lip-synching down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles as the song loops over and over. Mimi Valdes, Williams' creative director, was on set for every day of the 11-day shoot, and she tells Robert Siegel and Melissa Block about the process.

President Obama addressed the nation Thursday after news that former South African president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela died, saying the world lost an influential, courageous and "profoundly good" man.

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